Kenneth Robert Wright

A respected authority on water engineering, water rights, hydraulics, and hydrology, Kenneth R. “Ken” Wright made an indelible mark on the civil engineering profession by completing countless innovative engineering research projects across America and overseas.

It was Wright’s six years at the University of Wisconsin (UW) under the tutelage of inspirational professors like Arno Lenz, James Villamonte, and James Woodburn that prepared him for a life at the leading edge of hydraulic and hydrologic engineering. Wright received two bachelor’s degrees (civil engineering and business administration) in 1951 and a master’s degree in civil engineering in 1957.

Internationally, he is also recognized for his hydrological research in Peru. However, Wright’s engineering field research had its roots in Saudi Arabia, where his first engineering job was with the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) as a construction engineer. His travels to ancient sites in the Middle East piqued his interest in little-known foreign cultures. This eventually led him to a long-term relationship with the pre-historic Peruvian civil engineering water projects at Machu Picchu, Tipon, and Moray.

A high point of Wright’s work in Peru occurred in 2007. A proclamation by Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez lauded Wright and his wife Ruth for their contribution to the cultural heritage of Peru through their civil engineering research and publications on Machu Picchu, Tipon, and Moray. This work would help young Peruvians better appreciate their ancestors and the engineering legacy left them by the pre-Columbian Inca. The two proclamations and gold medals were presented to the Wrights at a formal ceremony at the Torre Tagle Palace in Lima by the Peruvian Foreign Minister, with Ministry officials and ambassadors in attendance.

A particularly memorable Peruvian event occurred at a research site at Machu Picchu when his team of archaeologists and macheteros had excavated an ancient Inca fountain and were finally cleaning the approach channel when water appeared as if by magic—first a trickle, then a gush, flowing down a small ancient channel, make two $90\text{-}\text{degree}$ turns, and suddenly spurting into the carved granite basin below. With a sense of wonder the team was transported back in time some five hundred years to when the Inca engineers completed this ceremonial fountain and they, too, witnessed the first spring water turn the same two right-angle bends and jet out into the same stone basin. Seeing the water flow from a fountain that had been buried for nearly five centuries, one of the macheteros got down on his knees to pray, asking Pacha Mama “Earth Mother” to keep the fountain flowing forever.

Wright’s first engineering job was in Saudi Arabia in 1951 as a construction engineer. One of his projects, cathodic protection of the $\mathrm{1,200}\text{-}\text{mile}$ Trans-Arabian Pipeline, was featured in the May 1957 issue of Civil Engineering. This was his start in technical writing.

His wife Ruth shared the final one-and-one-half years of Wright’s experience in Saudi Arabia. Following their Arabian period, Ruth and Ken moved to Madison where he enrolled in the graduate program at UW and Ruth entered law school where she was appointed as an editor of the Law Review during her freshman year. Ruth continued her legal pursuits after the couple moved to Boulder in 1957, eventually getting a juris doctorate degree from the University of Colorado law school and serving seven terms as a highly respected state representative in the Colorado legislature with six hard-working years as House Minority Leader. This prepared Ruth well for her role as Ken’s partner in paleohydrology research in Peru.

After moving to Boulder, Wright’s next engagement was with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) at the Denver Federal Center, where he focused on stream channel hydraulic and sedimentation engineering. During this employment, in a channel of the Rio Grande, Wright’s stream sampling boat violently flipped as the pulley line snapped, throwing four federal employees into the rapid flow. A crisis was evident when senior U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologist Frank Ames began calling for help. Wright, who had safely made his way to shore, immediately dove back into the current, fully clothed and with heavy boots, to come to Ames’s assistance and safely pull him to shore. Interior Secretary Seaton presented Wright with the Department of Interior Gold Medal for Valor in Washington, D.C. in 1957.

In 1958, Wright left the USBR to enter private practice where he became a partner in Wheeler and Wright for consulting services in water resources engineering. Then, in 1961, Wright formed Wright Water Engineers, Inc. (WWE). He continues an active practice at his firm with long-term clients that include the Coors Brewing Company, the federal government, ExxonMobil, the State of Colorado, and the City and County of Denver. WWE currently maintains a staff of about fifty professionals with offices in Denver, Glenwood Springs, and Durango.

After completion of a challenging Coors project in 1988, Coors Vice President Sandra Woods wrote to Wright, “You have proven once again that competent, innovative engineering services are a sound investment for a company such as ours.” Wright initiated the redevelopment of Denver’s historic South Platte River, including planning of the ten-mile-long Greenway River Corridor, with then State Senator Joe Shoemaker. For his work, Wright received numerous kudos, including a significant one from Senator Shoemaker, who congratulated him for “completing the master plan for the South Platte River in a manner that exceeded all our expectations.” For Ken’s work on the project and Ruth’s legislative support, they received the Greenway Foundation’s 2001 Friend of the River Award.

Wright has served numerous times as an expert witness on the hydraulics of submerged hydraulic jumps for drownings at low-head dams from New Jersey to Oregon. He has also been an expert for many dozens of court cases with leading Colorado water attorneys.

He was an engineering consultant to the U.S. Supreme Court Special Master in Texas versus New Mexico No. 65 Original for the Pecos River Compact, where he helped resolve the contentious water issues and recommended compensation by New Mexico to Texas in money rather than water delivery. During his work on the groundbreaking A-B Cattle Company case, lead attorney Charles Beise wrote, “Ken Wright had done an outstanding job of great merit. It alone assures our victory.”

Following the disastrous Big Thompson Flood in 1976 in which more than 140 people perished, Colorado Governor Richard Lamm appointed Wright as a special assistant and later consultant for one-and-a half years to manage the state’s role in flood recovery efforts. His active involvement with local and federal agencies resulted in redevelopment of the canyon corridor in a way that respected nature’s prescriptive easement over the floodplain.

Wright has designed myriad cutting-edge projects during his career. He designed Denver’s Harvard Gulch Flood Control Project, which remains a model for drainage functionality, beauty, and public safety without the use of fences. Landscape architect Ann Spirn, then of the University of Pennsylvania, used it as an example in an article about “urban poetry.” Denver Mayor Tom Currigan added his official commendation, citing Wright personally for a “job well done.”

After testing his hydraulic and environmental innovative hypotheses in the design of Harvard Gulch, he wrote the six-county Urban Storm Drainage Criteria Manual in 1969 for the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG), updated by his firm in 2001. The manual’s design techniques helped introduce the widespread use of modern urban drainage practices, such as detention storage, the Colorado urban hydrograph method, open channel urban drainage-ways using USBR technology, and open-space-oriented public works. Porter Driscoll, director of the Architectural and Engineering Division of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said, “The manual is the first such standard prepared for implementation throughout American metropolitan areas.” Its performance-oriented design criteria have been adopted throughout the country and in many foreign countries and opened the door to environmentally friendly approaches to urban drainage, planning, and design. The executive director of the DRCOG, T. K. Smith, said, “In my six and one-half years as head of this organization, the development of its drainage manual was one of our greatest accomplishments.” Later, Wright developed a water supply and delivery system plan for secondary recovery of oil from seven Iranian oil fields in 1972–1973 under contract with Dames and Moore for the National Iranian Oil Company. He also designed the successful Long Draw Dam and Reservoir adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Two client statements typify the high caliber of Wright’s work over the years. Reverend Robert Dallenback of the Pillar of Fire Church in Westminster, Colorado, said, “It is with the highest praise and gratitude that I commend you for your through engineering product; your sensitivity to the legalities of related issues, and the refined manner you constantly exercised.” Gunnison County, Colorado Public Works Director Joanne Williams told Wright, “Your study for the Marble Valley has become biblical in value.”

Concurrent with Wright’s professional practice career, he served four years on the Boulder City Council from 1971–1975 as a means of contributing back to the community. Wright also served nine years on the Colorado State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, where he also served as chairman. His participation in the ASCE ranged from serving as chairman of the Hydraulics Group in the Colorado Section and chairman of the National Hydrology Committee to chairing the Executive Committee of the ASCE Hydraulics Division.

In 2005, ASCE’s Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI) presented Wright with its Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his “life-long and eminent contribution to the environmental and water resources engineering disciplines through practice, research, and public service.”

For Wright’s professional civil engineering work, the ASCE awarded him honorary membership in 2006, joining a select group of honorary members out of its 139,000 members worldwide. Wright received the ASCE History and Heritage Award in 2001 for his work at Machu Picchu, Peru.

Wright’s environmental bent as a civil engineer led to his appointment to the Oil Shale Advisory Committee, the Project Rulison Advisory Committee, and the Secretary of Interior’s USGS Technical Advisory Committee. He also served as state president of the Colorado Mountain Club during its fiftieth anniversary year as president of the Rocky Mountain Center on the Environment where he helped jump-start the Continental Divide Colorado Trail in 1962. Later, he served thirty-two years on the board of directors of the Colorado Mountain Club Foundation and as president of the foundation. In 2007, he received awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects for his work on the Estes Park, Colorado River corridor for design and land stewardship.

Early in Wright’s consulting practice, he joined the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) and served as the first chairman of the National Public Relations Committee where he initiated the annual Engineering Excellence Awards Program. He was a National Director in ACEC and served as Colorado ACEC President in 1981, during which time Wright, as a strong advocate of the importance of private-practice consulting engineering, promoted public service and excellence in engineering work for public-works projects. The Colorado ACEC gave Wright the George Washington Award in 2002, and in 2005, they presented him with its top honor, the Orley Phillips Award, for his long service to the consulting engineering profession.

Wright and his wife are long-time members of the Explorer’s Club. Both served several terms as chairperson of the Rocky Mountain Chapter. They have been awarded three club flags for field research at Mesa Verde, Colorado, and in Peru. In 2002, the National Geographic Society presented the Wrights with a globe with the citation, “We are forever grateful for you bringing the past alive through your research of Machu Picchu.”

Wright credits a number of colleagues with helping shape his approach to his engineering practice. Dr. Gilbert White, the father of modern floodplain management, invited Wright to the early University of Chicago meeting to formulate federal regulations of floodplains. D. Earl Jones, who served as Chief Engineer and Architect for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, was instrumental in shaping Wright’s urban drainage and flood control design philosophy. Both imbued Wright with a sense of public responsibility. This led to his extensive work in the 1970s for the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma on environmentally sensitive flood control designs. In 2005, Tulsa Mayor Bill LaFortune praised both Wright and his wife for their “invaluable contributions and floodplain management program that has saved countless lives and property in the City of Tulsa.” He designated June 3, 2005, “Kenneth and Ruth Wright Day” in Tulsa.

Wright’s engineering firm has routinely practiced the “Golden Rule” in its business and professional services. In 1996, Wright accepted the Colorado Ethics in Business Award, followed in 1999, at Orlando, Florida, with the American Ethics in Business Award. Both awards were the first for a consulting engineering business. Wright credits the company’s staff, all of whom practice the “Golden Rule” in their day-to-day activities. Wright takes pride in the more than a half century he has spent working with and training hundreds of engineers in ethics in business practice, coupled with maintaining a high standard of care. He has instilled in his employees the need to consider public health, safety, and welfare as the foremost priority in their planning and design, above that of even clients and their own firm.

In 1997, the Wrights formed the Wright Paleohydrological Institute (WPI) for the purpose of studying the use and handling of water by ancient people. A highlight of the Wrights’ field research at Machu Picchu was the discovery of a long-lost Inca Trail on the east flank of Machu Picchu in 1999. The results of this research were described in detail in Yale University’s 2004 publication Machu Picchu. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper cited the Wrights for the work detailed in Yale’s publication by stating, “Your work in understanding and educating the public about the engineering marvels of these ancient sites will undoubtedly help us in the current building and rebuilding of our cities.”

Wright’s Machu Picchu: A Civil Engineering Marvel is a best seller for ASCE Press. It was published in 2000 and reprinted in Spanish in Peru in 2006. His second book published by ASCE Press in 2006 was Tipon: Water Engineering Masterpiece of the Inca Empire that was heralded by Peruvian engineers and scientists as a publication that would enhance the cultural patrimony of the Andean people. His report on his third Peru research site was reviewed by the eminent Dr. Ramiro Matos of the Smithsonian, who stated, “I can openly say it is the best scientific report ever produced on Moray.” The Cultural Director of Peru’s Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería (UNI), Señor Fernando Caller, said that Wright’s research of Inca civil engineering has raised the self-esteem of Peru’s citizens. Dr. Jorge E. Alva, Dean of Engineering, remarked, “How come it took two North Americans [Ken and Ruth Wright] to teach us of our cultural heritage?” The Costa Rican Federation of Engineering and Architects presented Ruth and Ken with a certificate in 2007 for their lecture in San Jose, Costa Rica on sustainable construction. Wright has assisted the Federation in having Costa Rica’s most important archaeological site, Guayabo, being designated as an ASCE International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

In 2003, the American Public Works Historical Society published Wright’s Water for the Anasazi. His continuing research at Mesa Verde resulted in the 2006 publication of Water Mysteries of Mesa Verde. Wright’s field discoveries and findings related to the early American’s successful water management efforts have demonstrated that they knew a lot about the fundamentals of hydrology and engineering. He found that their operation and maintenance of Morefield Reservoir in Mesa Verde, for instance, covered a period of $350\text{years}$ and he called them good public works engineers. President of the Colorado Historical Society Georgiana Contiguglia wrote to the Wrights, “It is people like you, with your long-standing interest in prehistory, who continue to uncover the clues to help us understand our past.” To acknowledge Wright’s Mesa Verde field investigations and studies into ancient water development, the society awarded him its lofty Steven Hart Award for original research, along with matching grants to help support his ongoing field research efforts.

Wright was instrumental in having the four Mesa Verde prehistoric reservoirs designated as an ASCE National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 2004. In 2006, Wright was responsible for the designation of both Machu Picchu and Tipon as ASCE International Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks. ASCE President Bill Marcuson said, “Wright and his wife Ruth have contributed significantly to education of the world about the impressive engineering by the Inca. Ken’s research combining archeology and engineering is groundbreaking.”

Because of Wright’s well-grounded civil engineering practice and his successful field research, he has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards. For instance, Wright’s alma mater, UW, presented him with a Distinguished Service Citation in 2002 for “eminent professional services and high quality environmental services to his clients.” In Lima, Peru, he was named “Professor Honorario” by the UNI in 2005 and “Professor Honorario” by Ricardo Palma University in 2007. Other Peruvian awards are a Diploma de Honor from the Congreso de la Republica de Peru in 2006, a certificate for Exceptional Contributions from the Centro Andino de Estudios Machupicchu in 2002, and a Municipal Resolution on llama skin naming him an “Illustrious Guest” of the Honorable Distril de Machupicchu.

The declarations that resulted in the presentation of the gold medals in 2007 in Lima were the Presidential Condecoración de la Order Al Merito por Servicios Distinguidos en el Grado de Gran Oficial and the Resolución Suprema No. 054-2007-PE, signed by Alan Garcia Perez, Presidente Constitucional de la República, and Jose Antonio Garcia Belavende, Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores. Ruth was also bestowed with a gold medal at the ceremony.

Wright was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on March 10, 1929, a first-generation American. His parents, John S. and Olive (Page) Wright, traveled to the United States in the 1924 from Great Yarmouth, England. Ken’s father John was employed by the Milwaukee Gas and Light Company for forty-seven years, with the eventual position of Manager of Gas Distribution and Delivery.

Young Wright grew up in Milwaukee with siblings Gloria and Jack. As a junior in high school at age sixteen, Ken corresponded with six Western states seeking outdoor summer employment and accepted a job with the State of Idaho in the Clearwater Forest trimming felled trees from timber harvesting to reduce fire hazard. This allowed Wright to visit Grand Coulee Dam, Yellowstone National Park, and cities along the roundtrip bus route.

A year later, Ken bought a 1936, eighty-cubic-inch Harley Davidson motorcycle and traveled the Wisconsin countryside, and then took an extended trip to see his forest-thinning buddy in Eureka, Kansas, visiting a wide array of sites along the way. These early excursions sealed his appreciation for the cultural and natural environment of the country—and his thirst for adventure.

He took up serious skiing in 1946 at age seventeen and became chairman of the Milwaukee Junior Ski Club, where he met Ruth Sponner in 1947 on a club trip to Iron Mountain, Michigan. They became good friends and kept in contact for the next six years, during which time they shared many experiences together like being symphony orchestra ushers at the Milwaukee Pabst Theater, skiing on weekends, and frequently swimming in the Milwaukee River at Thiensville.

While in college, Ken participated in crew for one year and rowed at the Intercollegiate Regatta at Marietta, Ohio, in 1950. He organized and led a 125-student University of Wisconsin Hoofers Ski Trip to Wausau, Wisconsin, and participated in its ski patrol activities. In his senior year at UW, Wright was appointed chairman of the university’s annual Winter Carnival and served as an editor for the Wisconsin Engineer publication, for which he received a commendation in his senior year.

Immediately after graduation, Wright left for Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where, he said, “Five years of Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) employment helped shape my life.” In 2007, ARAMCO published a major article in their popular industry magazine on Wright’s fifty-year-long career.

His biggest life-altering event, however, was marrying Ruth Sponner after a six-year relationship that went from friendship to courtship. At the time, Ruth was employed as a civilian with the U.S. Army Europe in Heidelberg, Germany. They married in August 1954 in Salzburg, Austria, following a 1953 mountaineering vacation together in Switzerland at the Jungfrau, during which they were involved in a serious auto accident. A proposal for marriage was made from Wright’s hospital bed in a small Austrian village. Three months later, in Milwaukee, Ruth accepted the proposal by saying, “What type of clothes do American women wear in Saudi Arabia?” That was all Wright needed. To celebrate their engagement, Ruth and Ken drove from Milwaukee to Aspen, Colorado, in search of a future home. They were serious enough about Colorado to purchase four acres on Aspen’s Red Mountain where an Aspen street is now named “Wright’s Road.” After their stint in Saudi Arabia where they were able to travel extensively throughout the Middle East—Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Iran, Iraq, and Syria—they returned to the United States. After a year at the University of Wisconsin, they moved to Colorado, Where Ken worked at the USBR.

Ken and Ruth joined the National Ski Patrol at Arapahoe Ski Basin where they both were awarded national patrolmen status and where Ken served as an avalanche instructor. During this time, Ken was given the National Ski Patrol System Purple Star for lifesaving and the Red Cross lifesaving award. Wright and his long-time friend Hartman Axley rescued a young Boy Scout from a mountain stream after he had fallen down a cliff while on a Scout outing in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area. The Boy Scout later became president of Radio City Music Hall and then of Madison Square Garden in New York.

Ken and Ruth have two children—Rosemarie and Leslie. Leslie is an assistant Boulder County attorney handling the needs of several agencies and right-of-way issues, along with general natural resources law. Rosemarie raises and sells horses for hunting that she brings in from Ireland and Canada, and trains in Virginia. Rosemarie’s husband, Grosvenor, is a direct descendent of Martha Washington, whose family has contributed numerous heirlooms to both Mount Vernon and Monticello. Grosvenor represented the Washington family in 2006 at the commemoration of the Battle of Yorktown. Leslie’s husband, Gray, is a recreational engineering consultant who designs whitewater kayak courses throughout the United States.

In October 2007, the Wrights were selected to participate in a documentary that Der Spiegel TV of Hamburg, Germany, is doing for a television series on “Gods, Graves, and Scholars,” specifically for the segment on the Inca Empire. The pair was filmed onsite at Machu Picchu. Nothing, it seems, is ever dull in the globetrotting world of the Wrights.

When Wright is not traveling, he is at work in his Denver office. He and Ruth reside in Boulder, Colorado. From their living room and front porch, they enjoy an outstanding panoramic view of the spectacular Flatirons mountain range for which the city is famous.